Transformations of the ordinary

Best described as rugged Updike with echoes of Raymond Carver, these dark, often self-questioning short stories suggest that …

Best described as rugged Updike with echoes of Raymond Carver, these dark, often self-questioning short stories suggest that Bausch is, in common with Russell Banks, one of the most under-rated of US writers. In the best of the stories, "The Person I Have Mostly Become", a divorced man is having trouble with his son, and slowly realises he himself is trapped in perpetual boyhood thanks to his well-meaning, terrifying mother. In Bausch's only off-beat story, a character recently released from prison makes the mistake of picking up a hitch-hiker - who, having reinvented herself in the image of a famous Wild West baddie, has taken to murder, and kills her fifth victim before his eyes. But Bausch is firmly rooted in the ordinary, his natural territory. In the superb, dialogue-driven title story, an incredulous father doubts his ears when his daughter tells him she is getting married to a senior citizen. Intuitive, uncomfortably true to life and very human, this fine collection yet again confirms that the short story, with few exceptions, has become an American art form.

Eileen Battersby